Not Before Time
by aliis
Summary: You do *not* want to get on the wrong side of this lot...
1. Chapter 1

"Well, I think this is one of the most unique pieces it's ever been my privilege to handle. Where did you get it?"

All a-flutter, the young woman began breathlessly, "Oh, it's a lovely story! When my mother was five years old, she was taken to visit a distant relative in the country, a very elderly gentleman who lived in a beautiful manor house. While she was there, she became fascinated with this clock and kept wanting to play with it. My grandmother was trying to stop her, but the old man said, 'Oh, let her, if she wants to. She has great taste.' So she was allowed to play with the clock, and just a couple of years later the elderly gent died and lo and behold, he'd left it to my mother in his will!"

A small crowd of curious onlookers had gathered to hear the tale, and now murmured in delight. The antiquarian replied, "How absolutely charming! And you've obviously kept it well maintained, it's in excellent condition, I must say. Now, do you know anything about its origins?"

The woman shook her head. "Not a thing. That's the main reason I brought it here today."

"Ah, then I have a surprise for you. This clock was made by Josef Faller, one of the famous Faller family of clockmakers from the Black Forest region of Germany. His craftsmanship was renowned throughout Europe, and one of his sons came to Britain in the mid-1800s. It's thought that he brought with him some of his father's earlier work, and I rather suspect that this lovely piece may be one of those originals."

The woman made appropriate "impressed" noises but didn't ask the obvious question, the one everyone else was dying to ask.

"Do you have it insured?" queried the expert.

"Oh, no, that never occurred to me! It was just a trinket passed down through the family." A few sceptical eyebrows were raised around the room, but still no-one else chipped in.

"I would strongly advise you to have it valued, insured, and stored in a very secure location. An original Josef Faller clock, in this prime condition, is likely to fetch upwards of £600,000 at auction."

A low gasp blew like a breeze through the assembled crowd, and there were a few amazed whistles. The owner of the clock looked suitably stunned. The valuer smiled kindly and said, "That's quite the find you have there."

**********

"I'll give you three hundred grand for it, cash, no questions asked."

"Do I know you?" the attractive young lady narrowed her eyes and took in the smartly-attired businessman who had met her at her car.

He gave a patronising smile and said, "I'm certain you don't, or I wouldn't be making you this offer. Off the books, no tax, no auction house commission – you'll barely lose any money, in fact."

The woman was very reluctant. "I actually wasn't planning to sell it…" she began, but was cut off mid-sentence by a barking laugh.

"Oh, that's a good one! Look, dearie, that's what they all say when they come to these antique roadshow things." He feigned a woman's surprised voice: "'Oh, my goodness, I had no idea it was worth that much!' - my arse. Pardon the French."

"I didn't say I _wouldn't_ sell it."

Now she had his undivided attention. He delved into the inside pocket of his coat and produced several wads of pound notes. "What say we just count this out here, and we can both be on our way with something we want?" He started to flick through the rolls of money, but was taken aback when the woman helped herself to one from his hand, unwrapped it, and checked every last note. She did this with each bundle until she was satisfied that the full amount was present and correct.

Stowing the cash in her roomy handbag, she leaned down, lifted the box at her feet, and handed it to the eager buyer. "Here you go. 'No questions asked', right? We'll never see each other again."

"Suits me fine, darling. Au revoir!" The man walked briskly away across the car park to a Land Rover. He did not see the smile of satisfaction that spread slowly across Emma's lips as she jumped into her car and drove away at exactly the right speed so as not to attract attention.

**********

"So the moral of the story is, 'Let the buyer beware'!" declared Albert in triumph as he removed his tweed jacket and Paisley-patterned cravat.

"Three hundred thou's not a bad haul, sis, not bad at all," Sean commented with admiration as he unrolled the banknotes. He smiled approvingly at Emma as she lounged, with a definite air of smugness, on the sofa.

"You played the ingénue to perfection, my dear girl." Albert kissed his fingers like a chef declaring his approval of a dish. "There wasn't a single soul in that hall who doubted for a moment that what they saw was the real thing."

"Couldn't've done it without you, Albert." Emma nodded her respect to the crew's elder statesman.

"All right, have we finished with the mutual appreciation society already?" asked Mickey, annoyed that he hadn't been there to witness the spectacle for himself – Ash had been lurking in the queues of people waiting to have their antiques appraised, just in case any backup was needed, and Sean had been outside on his motorbike, keeping an eye open for whoever approached Emma.

"Oh come on, Mick, don't be such a grouch," grinned Ash. "What about heading down to Eddie's to wet the clock's head?"

Mickey rolled his eyes, but conceded, "Only if we go for something to eat first." All agreed, and by the time the taxi they ordered had arrived, a restaurant had been decided on, and they headed off into the evening.

**********

"I don't…what the hell happened here?!" Mickey was the only one of the five of them who could find words. They stood and stared at the wreckage of the hotel suite. It was in a much, _much_ worse state than they had once left it as part of a con.

They walked through the debris, still utterly gobsmacked at what lay at their feet - for everything lay at their feet: pictures, ornaments, cushions, even a door to one of the adjoining bedrooms.

"I hate to think what this is going to cost us," Ash finally managed to mutter.

"Not a brass farthing," Albert announced resolutely. "I'm calling the manager." With that, he lifted the phone and dialled reception; no-one stopped him.

The crew had resolved not to get chucked out of yet another hotel, and were faithfully keeping up-to-date with the bills. Mind you, they weren't using their own credit cards, but they weren't using fakes, either. So the management viewed them purely as valued customers who should be afforded every courtesy.

After the horrified duty manager had seen the damage for himself, he agreed to keep the police out of it (mainly to avoid having to report the incident to his head office) and also to let Albert and Ash inspect the hotel's CCTV footage to try and identify the culprits.

Meanwhile, the rest of the team returned to Eddie's bar while the housekeeping staff went about restoring the suite to its proper order. An hour or so later, Mickey, Sean and Emma were joined by Ash, brandishing a DVD that the manager had let him take away, and Albert, steam coming out of his ears.

"Well?" Mickey demanded, as they budged up around the table to accommodate everyone.

Ash produced his netbook and ran the DVD on it. Simply put, he had selected and pasted together all the footage that showed the arrival and departure of the people who had ransacked their room. They had been easy enough to identify as they had arrived in a group of eight and gained access to the hotel unnoticed, through the service entrance - much to the chagrin of the manager and his security officer.

"They're just kids!" exclaimed Emma, astonished.

"Students, to be precise," said Albert, his voice heavy with disapproval. "It would seem, on the face of it, to be some kind of rag week stunt."

"Apparently one of them – this guy here" – Ash indicated a young man with long dark hair – "used to have a job at the hotel. They had to let him go because he was suspected of pilfering from the other members of staff…"

"…and this is his way of sticking two fingers up at the management?" finished Sean in disbelief.

Ash nodded. "Luckily, the manager had to leave us for a few minutes, and our man's personnel file just 'happened' to be lying open on the desk" – here Mickey gave a wry smile – "so we have an address for him, although it may not be current. But it's somewhere to start."

Emma looked from Ash to Mickey to Albert. "Are you seriously proposing that we exact some sort of revenge on these idiots? They're really not worth the hassle, and surely if anyone takes them to task it should be the hotel, not us!"

Mickey finally spoke up. "I'm curious as to why they chose our suite. Did the manager have any ideas as to why that might be?" he asked Ash.

"They hotel's not particularly busy at the moment, what with it being the low season for tourism and all that, and ours is the best suite that's currently in use," was the answer.

"Ah." Mickey, and everybody else, understood. "So it wasn't personal, we just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." Emma nodded her agreement, and relaxed.

"Doesn't make a blind bit of difference," shrugged Mickey dispassionately. "We're still going to teach them a lesson. Ash, in the morning you can follow up the address you've got…"

"No time like the present, Mick. When are students likely to be at home? Not this time of night, that's for sure." Ash gave a knowing wink and, leaving his computer, said, "Coming, Sean?" The younger man joined him with altogether too much relish for his sister's liking.

"No, come on, guys, not tonight!" she protested, standing up with them as they prepared to go.

"Doesn't make any difference, sis; tonight or tomorrow, these guys are going to get what's coming to them. Don't worry, it won't be anything too nasty – will it, Ash?" Sean finished hopefully.

"That depends on how high on the hog they're living," came the reply.

**********

"I think we should take it in shifts," suggested Ash. "You up for that?"

"Just try and stop me," Sean answered. "Where'll we be?"

Ash cast a practiced eye around the neighbouring buildings. "Well, most of these places are university-related offices, so there's bound to be one or two of them lying empty." He sized up a likely-looking entrance nearby, strolled casually over and gave the door a tug. It opened easily, and he entered the building, followed by Sean.

On the second floor, they found what they were looking for: a vacant corner office with two windows, one looking directly into the mark's flat, and the other onto the street that ran past the campus.

"Perfect," pronounced Ash. "Right," he gave Sean's shoulder a friendly punch, "you take the first spot. I'll come back and relieve you about nine o'clock, all right?"

"Nine…in the morning?!" Sean was rapidly going off the idea.

"They're not in now, are they? So it stands to reason they'll be rolling back at some point, having gone out and got slaughtered to celebrate trashing our gaff."

"Yeah, I suppose so. But what about grub? I haven't got so much as a packet of chewing gum on me."

"No problem, I'll see to that. We passed an all-night Spar on the way here, I'll just nip back and…"

"Tell you what, Ash, _I'll_ go down the shop and buy what _I_ want. You get stuff that only my granddad would touch, custard creams and Fisherman's Friends and all sorts of rubbish. Back in ten!" Sean waved breezily as he closed the door behind him, and Ash couldn't help smiling at his protégé's talent for getting out of things. He settled down on a packing crate to observe their adversary's apartment.


	2. Chapter 2

"Ash! Ash!" The fixer was vaguely aware of Sean urgently shaking him awake.

"Wha..? Whassamatter?" Ash roused himself and looked at his watch. "Blimey, how long were _you_ gone?" He saw the bag of junk food that Sean had bought and grabbed a can of Red Bull to try and wake himself up.

"I was only gone twenty minutes or so, you doughball. By the time I got back here you were spark out, so I just left you. _They_ rocked up a few moments ago." He pointed outside, and Ash became aware of shouting and laughing going on down in the street. He looked out and saw a group of noisy students playing cricket under the street lights, with a traffic cone for stumps and what looked suspiciously like a car number plate for a bat. Keenly scoping out each player, Ash soon homed in on their mark.

"That's him," he said softly but with certainty, pointing out the pony-tailed lad in the long black leather coat who was now bowling a grapefruit.

**********

"Ems, I need you to do something."

"Sure, Ash, how can I help?"

"I need you to go down to the student housing office and find out what you can about the flat that lout Lewis Fisher rents. At least, I'm assuming he rents it as it's near the university, but I suppose he might have a rich relative who's bought it for him."

"Okaayyy…" Emma was hesitant, still not sure she approved of the plan to wreak revenge on the unsuspecting ringleader of the vandals. "So, details of the landlord, rent payments, tenancy agreements, stuff like that." She hurriedly made a list in her notebook.

"Yep, exactly. Oh, and who actually owns the property, too," added Ash, as Emma headed for the door.

Mickey emerged from his room and surveyed the lounge area. "Much better," he declared.

The suite was now looking as it had before the surprise visit, although with some different artwork and decorative objects to replace those that had been beyond repair. The manager had sneaked an insurance claim in under the radar, and nobody had been out of pocket. The most severe and lasting damage had been done to the grifters' pride, although Emma suspected it was more of a male territory issue than anything else. Still, she was always willing to give Ash a hand where she could; she saw how he had taken Sean under his wing, passed on his grifting skills and wisdom, and generally been like the father Sean couldn't remember ever having. It gave her peace of mind to know her brother had a male role model who, while not exactly what any parents would have chosen for their only son, was at least imbuing him with some street smarts and common sense.

Emma was mulling over all this as she reached her destination. Consulting the map Ash had printed out for her from the uni website, she pinpointed the housing office and took the lift to the fourth floor of the main admin block. The woman who stepped out looked rather different from the one who had got in at ground level. Brunette rather than blonde, now wearing a smart black jacket over her white blouse, topped off with a scholarly-looking pair of spectacles, she walked confidently into the room marked "Student Accommodation Services".

"Can I help you?" asked a girl who was obviously a student herself.

"I do hope so. I'm Ingrid Kemp, from Westminster Council. This address, Flat 5, 20 Asquith Street: I need to know who the owner is."

"I'm afraid I'm not able to give out that kind of confidential information," the girl replied in a condescending tone.

Emma regarded her over the top of her glasses. "Perhaps I haven't made myself clear. A number of complaints have been received about the tenant of this flat. I have been asked to look into the matter and render a decision at the earliest possible date. I cannot do that unless I know to whom to direct my enquiries."

"Well, I can pass on your request for information to the property's owner, if that would be of any help," offered the assistant.

"I'm not sure that it would. As I explained to you, this is a rather urgent case; the tenancy may be terminated unless I can provide evidence to support the tenant's case."

"Ahhh…I see…" Now that Emma appeared to be working in favour of a student, the atmosphere thawed noticeably. "Let me just get that record up…would you like me to print it out for you?"

"That would be tremendously helpful, thank you so much," effused Emma. She took the papers, scanned through them, and saw that everything Ash had asked her to find was contained in these documents. Turning to leave, she said, "I really appreciate your assistance, I'll be certain to mention it to Mr. Collins." She was rewarded with a beaming smile, and felt relieved that she had taken a minute to read the names on the organisational chart displayed outside the office.

**********

"It's as you suspected, Ash, the owner of the flat is a Mr. Benjamin Thornley-Fisher, of Holland Park, W11."

"Daddy!" growled Ash gleefully. "And he's obviously not short of a bob or two with that postcode. Good. Now we can get cracking." He rubbed his hands in anticipation.

"Ash…I'm still not really comfortable with this. Their prank wasn't directed personally at any of us, and we didn't lose out on anything because of it."

With a scornful snort, Ash interrupted, "I take issue with the word 'prank' – did _you _see anybody laughing when we got back last night?"

"No, granted it was a bit of a shock to come home and find that kind of chaos, but once we found out the reason behind it…"

"Doesn't matter. Bottom line is, you don't do home invasions unless you're going to leave the place as you find it, and you _definitely _don't just toss a place for the sake of it. Those morons weren't even looking for anything. And what if someone with a weak heart had been staying here? That could have finished them off, coming back here and finding that mess."

Emma gave in with a sigh. "All right, what's next?"

"You need do nothing," declared Ash magnanimously. "All that will be required are these" – he wiggled his fingers in an exaggerated typing fashion – "and an internet connection." He lifted his mobile from the table and dialled. "Sean? Anything new to report? OK…good. Well, Emma's found out that Lewis's pop bought him the flat…" Something else seemed to strike Ash at that moment and he said, "Call me if our man shows up. Thanks."

He hung up and turned to Emma. "Did you manage to get hold of the tenancy agreement?"

"Yep, here it is." The pair sat down at the dining table and spread out the papers.

Ash leafed through them. "Right…I see Daddy Fisher actually has a rental contract with little Lewis and therefore has an income from the property. However…looking at this list of payments, it would seem that while the rent is being transferred to the landlord's account, an identical amount is also being paid by the housing benefits office in respect of the same flat…"

Emma caught on. "…meaning that Mr. Holland Park is not only receiving rent, but getting paid by the government too? That's outrageous!" She sat back, disgusted.

"And illegal, by the sound of it," added Mickey, who had been listening from the sofa.

"Actually, no," replied Ash. "It's a fairly common scam in the private rental sector: a well-off landlord buys a property, lets it to his son or daughter who supposedly pays him rent and who in turn claims housing benefit. However, the tenant – in our case, Lewis Fisher – has no real need to leave the parental home, never pays a bean in rent, and the taxpayer ends up funding the rich parent's purchase of the property. The benefits agency has no idea that landlord and tenant are related. Dear old dad could afford to hand his son the keys to the place outright, but why bother when you can work the system and get the state to pay the mortgage instead? While it may be immoral, it's not technically against the law."

"That might explain why Lewis has dropped the 'Thornley' bit of his surname," suggested Emma.

Ash nodded. "Could be. Whichever way you slice it, Thornley-Fisher makes a tidy profit, and Junior gets a nice pad in town, courtesy of the welfare state. And believe me, I've seen the place, it's not exactly your typical student dive."

"And it's worth half a mil," Emma added, brandishing the valuation Ash had downloaded from an online property database.

"Perhaps there's more to this con than we originally thought," mused Mickey. He wandered out onto the balcony.

"Having second thoughts?" Ash asked as he joined in gazing at the London skyline.

"Not about doing the con, just in the way we go about it, and who the marks are," Mickey replied.

"'Marks'?" queried Ash. "You're thinking about taking on the old man as well?" He fell silent, but his face betrayed his doubts and concerns.

"You think it might be biting off more than we can chew?"

"Not necessarily, Mick, but I'm never happy about changing horses mid-stream. It just means there's more could go wrong. Why not leave Thornley-Fisher Senior for another time? We don't have to take them both at once."

"Yes, but think how satisfying it would be, not to mention cost-effective!" Mickey was really warming to the idea now.

"What, two for the price of one? This isn't Sainsbury's, it's a con."

Smiling, Mickey answered, "I know, Ash. I'm not saying it's definite, just mulling over the possibility. Give me a few hours and I'll have a better idea of how it might work."

**********

"Sean, I've got another job for you. Get yourself back here."

"Does it involve twelve hours' kip? Cos if not, I may just stay here and crash."

"Very funny. We're all working flat out at the moment, y'know, you're not the only one losing their beauty sleep. See you shortly."

Upon his return to the hotel, Sean was relieved to see that there were no piles of paperwork or electrical gadgets to tackle. He was, however, instructed to "freshen up" and then get together with Ash, which he duly did, feeling slightly more awake.

"Right, what we're after is a bogus social networking page for Master Fisher," explained Ash, as they sat down together at the table.

"OK." Sean's fingers flew over the keyboard and he quickly set up a Facebook account in the name of Lewis Fisher. He listed his interests, which he had observed included Guitar Hero, proper cricket and not just the street furniture variety, clubbing and very little in the way of study. Any books or other traditional student accessories were not much in evidence in the flat. A photograph Sean had taken of their mark completed the page.

Ash grinned his approval. "Brilliant! Now, post an open invite to a party this coming Friday night at his place. Everybody welcome, bring all your mates, as much booze as you can drink, that sort of thing."

Sean was beginning to understand. "Right, no problem…" – he typed in the date, venue, and a few tempting details – "…there we are. You know, Ash, if I could hack into his _real_ Facebook account, I'd be able to make sure all his friends knew, too…"

"Go on, then." Secretly, Ash didn't believe that the lad would actually be able to gain access to the real Fisher's page, but he sat back and observed as Sean tried one password after the other. It took a few minutes, but he did it.

Ash sat forward, incredulous. "You got in! What was the password?"

" 'Thornley,'" smirked Sean, and received a hearty smack on the back for his trouble.

"Well done, mate." Over his shoulder, Ash called, "Mick! We're on!"


	3. Chapter 3

The sound of dance music drifted towards the crew, and one by one, they smiled at each other. It was well after midnight, and as they rounded the corner into Asquith Street, they could see that the party had spilled out enthusiastically down the stairs, onto the pavement and across the road. Taxis were struggling to get through the crowds, and had to resort to blasting their horns in order to make it past. In reply, the partygoers shouted aggressively and made various hand signals.

"Definitely a better class of people," observed Mickey.

Without warning, a first-floor window shattered and a chair came flying out of it. The revellers on the pavement parted hastily to allow the item of furniture to smash to bits between them, then carried on laughing and talking as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Angry voices could now be heard coming from Lewis Fisher's flat. Lights were going on in the rest of the apartment block as neighbours started to realise something unusual was occurring. A real shouting match had developed at the heart of the festivities, and it became apparent that Fisher himself was attempting to break up the party, with somewhat limited success.

Another item came crashing through a window, this time an electric guitar, followed almost at once by, bizarrely, a bathroom sink. The grifters gasped in unison as it landed on the roof of a parked car. A howl of anguish went up from inside the flat, and continued to be heard as the owner of the car came charging downstairs and out into the street. It was Lewis Fisher.

"My car! Look what they've done to my car!" He looked as if he was going to tear his hair out.

"Don't worry," said a helpful gatecrasher, "here come the filth."

"_What?!_ Nooo!" bawled Fisher, desperately.

The patrol car edged its way through the now rapidly-dispersing masses, stopped in front of the flat, and two officers got out.

"Is this your vehicle, sir?" one of them asked Fisher.

"Yes, look…"

"It appears to have a sink on top of it," remarked the other one in a very professional, detached tone.

"I know - listen, ossifer…"

A police van arrived from the opposite direction and several constables disembarked. The sergeant who'd driven the first car walked over to them and instructed three or four to get upstairs and turn that bloody racket off, then get statements from the neighbours and anyone else who could string a sentence together. The rest of the officers were tasked with dispersing the crowd.

An older man appeared on the pavement beside them, clad in a dressing gown and slippers. "Excuse me, sergeant…"

"Yes, sir, my officers will be with you soon to get a statement from you, if you can just bear with us."

"I'm sure they will, it's just that…"

"I'm sorry, sir, but as you can see, there's a lot to do and we'd like to calm things down as quickly as possible. If you could just wait over here, please…" The sergeant steered the querulous neighbour over towards the railings in front of the block. Suddenly the man went down like a deck of cards.

"First aid here!" yelled the sergeant, kneeling down and taking off his hat.

"I'll call an ambulance, sarge," offered a WPC, getting on her radio.

The trained first aider of the group was listening anxiously for a heartbeat. "It's really faint," she said, shaking her head.

"CPR, then," said her senior officer determinedly.

"What in the blue blazes is going on here?!" boomed an old Etonian voice across the pavement. The source of the noise was getting out of the driver's seat of a silver Rolls Royce Corniche.

"And you are, sir…?" enquired the sergeant coolly, suspecting either a lawyer or a busybody.

"Ben Thornley-Fisher. I own this flat - what the devil is happening?"

Sensing that he might actually get some sense out of this fellow, the sergeant drew him apart from the anxious scene, as his officers battled to resuscitate the collapsed resident.

"You are the owner of Flat 5, 20 Asquith Street?"

"I am. I got a phone call from my son, who lives here, about ten minutes ago, to say that he'd been invaded by a horde of hoodlums and riff-raff who were trying to tear the place apart. I'm glad to see he called you as well!"

"I'm afraid we were asked to attend by some of the local residents, sir. We had several requests to come and break up this party, which seems to have got quite badly out of hand, if those broken windows are anything to go by. And it would appear that one of the neighbours has taken unwell as a result of all this, too…"

"What? You can't possibly say for sure that some old buffer's dodgy ticker is down to a party!"

"Oh, I rather think I can say whatever I like at this stage, sir, as it'll be my name at the bottom of the report when I get back to the station. Now, if you'd be so good as to come upstairs with me, we can start to get this sorted out …" He motioned for Thornley-Fisher to lead on, which the man did with a very bad grace, practically spitting at the last few hangers-on.

An ambulance turned into the street, and a constable flagged it down and directed it to the patient. The paramedics quickly assessed him, loaded him into the back of the vehicle, and sped off to the nearest A&E with an officer accompanying them.

"Well, that seems to be that," remarked Mickey. "Shall we?" He offered his arm to Emma, and the crew retreated into the night.

**********

"Yes? Can I help you?" The man's demeanour and tone of voice were such that "The service entrance is round the back" might well have been his next words.

Mickey presented his business card and said, deferentially, "My name is Jonas Davidson, and this is my associate, Louise Brook. We represent Matthew, Short and Hendry of Holborn and we're here on a somewhat sensitive matter, Mr. Thornley-Fisher. May we come in?"

Despite his natural reticence for letting total strangers into his home at a moment's notice, Thornley-Fisher stepped back and waved them in. His curiosity had got the better of him, although in several minutes he would wish it hadn't. He showed them into an over furnished, somewhat dusty, reception room and invited them to take a seat.

"Now, what is this about?" He remained standing himself, in front of the ornate baroque fireplace.

"It's in connection with an incident that took place last Friday evening at 20 Asquith Street, SW1, at which I believe you were present - is that correct?" asked Mickey, consulting his notepad.

Thornley-Fisher frowned. "And if I was? I fail to see what that has to do with you or anyone else," he replied belligerently.

"You own the property, Mr. Thornley-Fisher?" Mickey pressed on.

"Yes…"

"And your son is the tenant at that address?"

"Yes, but look here, this isn't…"

"A civil suit has been brought at West London County Court by a Mr. James Olivet of 22 Asquith Street. He alleges that on the night in question, you and your son acted in concert, as respectively owner and tenant of the property, to cause him distress and actual bodily harm by…"

"Now just hold on a minute here!" raged Thornley-Fisher. "This is absolute, utter nonsense! My son did not lay a finger on anyone…"

"I'm afraid there are several witnesses to the contrary." Emma peered over the top of her glasses at their crimson-faced host. She looked down at her notes and rang a finger along a line. "To be precise: four neighbours, seven party guests, and one police officer who provided first aid to Mr. Olivet, after he suffered a heart attack as a result of the stress he experienced on that evening."

"What?! This is quite, quite preposterous! I shall have to ask you to leave!" Thornley-Fisher strode across to the door and threw it open, indicating with his hand the direction he wished them to take.

Mickey and Emma rose, but stayed where they were. "We are instructed to serve you with notice of the suit and a summons for you to appear in two weeks' time …," continued Mickey.

"I'll not be appearing any-bloody-where!" was the explosive response.

"Then you will be in contempt, sir, and subject to further prosecution."

Thornley-Fisher ran frantic hands through his thinning hair. "No, no – wait! What kind of…of penalty might be…" His voice tailed off in quiet despair.

"That's not for us to say, sir," said Emma. "Our client, however, wishes to press for the maximum compensation available. You may recall the recent case involving a well-known actor who was sued after crashing his car into someone's garden…I think the plaintiff was awarded just under a million pounds."

"Dear God in heaven!" Thornley-Fisher turned a very pale grey, and found a nearby chair to sink into.

"There will, of course, be considerable legal costs involved – for both sides," continued Emma, meaningfully. "I'm sure that if the court proceedings could somehow be…circumvented, it would be a much more satisfactory solution."

"Yes! Yes!" shouted Thornley-Fisher, jumping to his feet and stabbing the air with his index finger. "How would we go about that?"

Mickey laid a cautionary hand on Emma's arm. "I really don't think we should be discussing that at this stage of the process," he murmured, although loud enough for the mark to hear. "Mr. Short is the only person with the authority to make that kind of offer."

"Initiative, Jonas," replied Emma in a stage whisper. "Think how good it'll look if we return to the office with the whole case done and dusted."

Mickey hesitated long enough for Thornley-Fisher to cry out, "What do I need to do?"

With a reluctant sigh, Mickey produced a document which he laid on a table by the window.

"You understand, Mr. Thornley-Fisher, that this is a legally binding contract, and that you are making a one-off payment of £250,000 to Mr. Olivet, as compensation for the pain and suffering caused to him?"

"Yes, yes, just give me the bloody pen!"

Emma handed her fountain pen to the perspiring Thornley-Fisher, who shakily signed his name and thrust the document at them.

Mickey examined the paper briefly, then handed it to Emma, who put it in her case.

"I can confirm that your signing this contract is accepted by us on behalf of our client, and that there will be no further action taken in this case. I must also ask you to keep the details of this matter completely confidential, as stipulated in the contract," Mickey said solemnly.

Thornley-Fisher slumped back into his armchair and stared blankly out of the window. Emma and Mickey exchanged glances and left without a word.

**********

Like a lottery winner, Mickey held up the quarter-of-a-million pound cheque and was rewarded with a round of applause and a fair bit of cheering.

"Woohoo! Go you!" shouted Sean, lifting his champagne glass to the others'. Ash had demonstrated his usual thoughtful foresight and ordered a few bottles of Veuve Clicquot from room service.

"Needless to say, this is going into the bank as soon as we've finished celebrating," Mickey explained.

"Excellent work, you two," said Albert. "In fact, excellent work all round, I'd say." He smiled broadly at the assembled crew.

"None the worse for your overnight stay in hospital, Albert?" Emma asked, touching his arm with concern.

"Oh no, not at all. The cackle-bladder soon wore off, and the medics decided that the young, inexperienced constable who'd come to my aid had been mistaken about my 'faint heartbeat', amidst all the chaos. So they were quite glad to see the back of me after doctors' rounds this morning."

"I think Thornley-Fisher felt the same way about the flat," put in Ash. "Sean was watching it at lunchtime when a moving van rolled up and all the sprog's gear was loaded into it." He took a sip of champagne and looked to Sean to continue with the tale.

"Next thing you know, there was an estate agent's sign going up outside number twenty," grinned the young man. "I got a taxi to follow Lewis, and would you believe it? he ended up back at daddy's."

"Awwww! Isn't that sweet?" cooed Emma. "Now they can spend lots of quality time together – _and _save money."

"Which, of course, they'll need to do after paying out Albert's 'compensation'," finished Mickey. "In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if a 'For Sale' notice popped up outside the house in Holland Park, too."

The phone rang and Ash, being nearest, answered it. "Hold on," he said, and covered the mouthpiece. "It's for you, Ems. Reception have a bloke downstairs who's asking if you've got any more antique clocks you want rid of."


End file.
